Sunday, October 25, 2015

Sometimes in business, we encounter Managers that are control freaks and information hoarders. I am not talking about sensitive personnel information, or other information that cannot be shared for privacy, or other good business reasons. I am talking about information that is necessary to team work and the ability for others to do their jobs. When this is encountered, the Manager involved must be counseled because information hoarding is a source of organizational stress. In addition, when discovered and it will be discovered, information hoarding creates distrust among other Managers, since for better or worse, an ulterior motive will be assumed.

Clearly, mutual respect and open communications are absolutely critical for an organization to grow and perform optimally. Managers that hoard information usually have a problem with delegating responsibilities as well, which is very counter productive. Work, or tasks should always be delegated to the lowest level employee possible to achieve maximum productivity. Higher level employees that can't delegate, using training to replicate their capabilities, usually fail at management.

When senior management sees Information Hoarding happening, which is counter productive to the organization, senior management must step in to open communications.This may require a formal process to force interaction; but short of terminating the Information Hoarder, who may otherwise be a good performer, what other alternative is there.